I said yesterday that I wouldn’t be surprised to se Daniil Medvedev at least press Novak Djokovic and the Russian ended up doing better than that and winning rather comfortably in the end, in a final set.

Of course, I backed the 2-1 win to Djokovic at 4.0 that went to around 1.20 in-play, but we can’t buy a winner on the clay at the moment.

It looks like if anything the wind will get stronger in Monte-Carlo on Saturday, with gusts of up to 32kph forecast at around 14:00 local time, so very tough conditions seem likely again.

Daniil Medvedev was able to hit through them on Friday against what, in the end, was somewhat weak opposition from Novak Djokovic, whose performances away from majors at the moment are miles away from his Grand Slam showings.

We’re not used to seeing Djokovic fade away in a deciding set in a major, but he didn’t seem willing to go the extra mile against the Russian yesterday and Medvedev is, for me, a rather surprising semi finalist, given his previous record on this surface.

To say he’s improved hugely is probably an understatement and looking at the likely match-up between Medvedev and Dusan Lajovic the Russian has to be the favourite.

Medvedev’s flat hitting takes the time away – even on clay now, it seems – from even the best players and Lajovic doesn’t like to be rushed and enjoys a rhythm in his game that he won’t get from the Russian’s ball.

Lajovic’s kick serve hasn’t been effective against taller players, with the Serb losing all bar one (a final set tie break win over Juan Martin Del Potro) of his last 17 matches against players over 6’4” in height.

On clay alone he’s 4-8 (lost five of the last six, with again Delpo the exception), but Medvedev may not be in the best physical condition after having the trainer out several times against Djokovic.

He later withdrew from the doubles, citing dehydration and said: “I started on the cramps, which didn’t affect my game. It was better to call him [the trainer] than to fall down on the court.”

So, in terms of the match-up I’d very much favour Medvedev here, but who knows how fit he is, so I’ll pass on this one.
 

Fabio Fognini vs Rafael Nadal

For two days in a row now I’ve shortlisted Fognini, but failed to back him, and if I do today it’s pretty likely he’ll throw in one of his less than committed efforts, but he doesn’t often do that against Nadal.

Had I backed Fognini as slight underdog yesterday I’d have had my head in my hands (again) as Fabio shuffled to a 1-6, 0-2 scoreline against Borna Coric, who was 1.04 in-play at that stage.

Typically, Fognini didn’t start to play until Coric donated his serve away in set two, but I would expect a more committed performance from the Italian today.

Fognini has covered either the +1.5 sets or +5.5 games (or both) against Nadal on clay in seven of their eight career meetings – and the only time he didn’t cover one of the handicaps was in their very first clash in Rome back in 2013.

He clearly enjoys the challenge of facing Nadal, who had to struggle against an inspired Guido Pella on Friday, with the Argentine taking one of the two options that I suggested he had in my preview.

That was the all-out attack option and he did very well for a while with it, leading Nadal by 4-1 (almost went to 5-1) in their opener before missing a few and Rafa was able to claw the set back.

Trying to second guess the likes of Fognini is never an easy thing to do, but the history suggests a performance is likely today, however I’m not sure what sort of physical condition he’ll be in.

I said a few days ago about all the injuries he’s playing with these days and you can add an arm injury to that now as well, but while he’s scheduled to play all the clay weeks, he can always either withdraw (or tank) next week in Barcelona.

If a match against Rafa with a Masters 1000 final against either Medvedev or Lajovic doesn’t motivate him I’m not sure what will and although a Fognini win seems unlikely his history of covering the handicap is noteworthy.

On their head-to-head clay stats Nadal has created exactly one break point chance per game against Fognini and limited the Italian to winning only 43.6% on his second serve.

However, Fognini has created 0.69 break chances per game on the Nadal serve and taken a slightly higher percentage of his chances than Nadal has (39.1% to 37.6%) so he’s played well on the big points in this series.

The bet options here look to be either Fognini on the set or game handicap or perhaps tie break played (they’ve played one in half of their eight clay clashes) and hope for a performance from Fogna.

Best Bets

0.5 points win Fognini +1.5 sets at 3.35
0.5 points win tie break played at 4.70